ZOO

From the author of Piggybook (1986), another powerful exploration of the family scene with a similar family of four: massive, boorish Dad, riding roughshod over everyone; quiet little Mum, a pained but helpless observer; the narrator and his younger brother, endlessly squabbling instead of looking at the caged animals they've come to see. The surreal touches here are minimal—the odd reptilian foot on a child or an animal head above a pin-striped suit suggest that humans, too, are animals- -but the extraordinary visual emphases are telling: a faraway elephant is blocked by a rail; a rhino is dwarfed by his glass- and-concrete enclosure; and while Dad looms, huge and belligerent, the gorilla he resembles looks back with a sad, far more intelligent gaze, and Mum and the quarreling boys are seen through bars, as if caged. The simple, childlike narration rings painfully true; the one note of hope is a query suggesting that the zoo visit has aroused curiosity, if not sensitivity: ``Do you think animals have dreams?'' It's a bleak portrait: these boys, as trapped in their family as the animals are in the zoo, are well on their way to growing up to be just like Dad. As usual, Browne's elegant, sharply satirical art is exquisitely designed and painted. A provocative look at the darker side of family dynamics. (Picture book. 4-10)